Dodge City times. [volume] (Dodge City, Kan.) 1876-1892, 1887-12-08
A BUSINESS VIEW.
The Rum Traffic from Dollar-and- Cent
Stand Point.

The Rum Traffic from u Dollar and Cent
stand Point.
The dollar-and-cent standpoint is a
low one for Judging great moral ques-
ton; but it is view of the case which
is, after all, most potent. Men respond
to a touch upon the pocket-nerve more
quickly than to any other. Hence it is
legitimate, in the warfare against that
fruitful parent of vice and crime. of
lewdness and debauchery. of sorrow
and misery, poverty and degradation,
TO set in array the money cost Of the
rum traffic.
There are some things SO priceless
that no money value can be assigned
them. They can not be bought with
gold. The mother who stands by the
cof1ined form of her dead son, brought
low by rum. is beyond comfort and
consolation, for though she may be
wealthy, all her shining store of gold
can not restore the vital spark; can not
place that son, once her idol, the center
of bright hopes and fOndest aspirations,
back on the parting of the ways, when
he took the wrong road. that has led
him to death. No wife can measure in
money the value of husbands love
and care, of which she has been robbed
by the devil of drink. No son, defraud-
ed of his birthright through his fathers
yielding to the temptations of rum, no
,>,,o,t ,,,bn-o oi,;1l =, fro,I;,,o +b.,
downward way, can measure the ire
parable loss. the shame, the misery, by
the standard of dollars and cents.
Let us then leave the consideration
of the irreparable damage thus
wrought by rum, and turn to what
may be called business view of the
subject.
The average man lives, as 4 rule,
pretty close up to his income. If he
earns 5000 year he spends it all, or
very nearly all. If this annual amount
is raised to 81, 200 his style of living i'm
proves; he has greater variety of
food, and Of better quality; he and his
wife dress better; he lives in a larger
and more comfortable dwelling; he has
better carpets and furniture; he has
more books and pictures; in short, he
enjoys life better. And if his earnings
go up to $1,000. for instance. he will
improve his style of living still further.
There is not one man in ten thousand,
under the circumstances named. who
would live in the narrow way he was
compelled to do ut the commencement
of his career.
With those men who are the slaves
of rum the demands of the internal
habit compel style of living As mar
row as is compatible with keeping soul
and body together. The drinking man
(if dependent on his daily labor for
support) has to live in poor quarters.
The furniture is scanty; of comforts in
the household there are few, and of ele-
gancies none. The clothing of him
self, his wife and family is of the poor
est and cheapest. The food is stinted
in quantity. and of the cheapest in
quality. All that he can possibly spare
goes across the counter of some rum
hole, for the devils drink which will
temporarily assuage the tormenting
thirst of which it was originally the
cause.
With the mouth of this
monster which devours the wages of
honest labor closed the drinking man
can 20 to his home without meeting
temptation a dozen times in traversing
the space between his place of occupa-
ton and his home. He can put in full
weeks, for there is no temptation to
take a holiday in order to go on de-
bauch. His full wages are in his
pocket on payday, for the saloon
keeper no longer exists, to take the
bulk thereof as his toll
The result of lifting the in
cubus of supporting the saloOn-keep-
ers in luxury from the shoulders of
these men is exactly the same as that
stated above; the same result is
reached as if their incomes were in
creased by the amount they formerly
spent for rum. They all live better.
They have better food. more abundant
in Quantity and in greater variety.
They dress themselves, their wives and
children, comfortably and decently.
They live in larger and better houses,
scy~